Me too. (At least in former times, during my military service as a dispatch rider)

Well, my son had a scrambles bike when we first moved out here, and there were even places to ride it like that; I have a motorbike licence too, and I sometimes used his bike, but I didn't really like it much.

The problem here is this: unless you have a Harley, when everyone can hear you even if they are usually deaf, bikes are for suicide jockeys. Folks just don't use their mirrors before they cut out to overtake. I have even been overtaken whilst sitting in the middle of the road in my car, indicating a left turn; the guy could have gone on my right or waited, but no, right across the carriageway onto the one for the oncoming traffic. Crazy.

I tend to agree with Chris Brown on this one. I've encountered this numerous times, but digging further, those who make up these rules tend to be the ones who have never really got to grips with digital properly. They seem to be bigoted old farts who are terrified of progress. They're comfortable with where they're up to and understand that much, so the only way to remain comfortable is to eliminate the competition of those who've moved on a bit. I've heard it said many times, 'photography is not art'! Most times I don't bite, but on the odd occasion I have to say, 'Tell that to Ansel Adams'! One brush artist argued that Photoshop manipulation removes the 'art' from photography. Really, well what was dodging and burning in the darkroom, or for that matter, isn't placing acrylic, oil or watercolour on a substrate with a brush manipulation of the scene before you. It's never ending and not worth arguing about. Just enjoy it and keep going.

I don't think that dodging and burning à la darkroom is anything but a very real part of the photographic art. And I mean 'art'. Doing the same thing with a computer is entirely something else. I can do both, and earned my living working within the darkroom's strictures for many years. Where the difference lies, for me, is within the gut. When you print wet, you feel the damned process with your hands, your brain and your eyes. Not so with digital, which is closer to typing than printing, no matter how complex/complicated you choose to make your digital print route. In my mind, it's never art. It's mechanical electronics. The clumsiest clod on Earth could still eventually make the right layer and get home. No soul needed, just patience.

Of course, there are many great digital printers out there, too, and I believe that darkroom experience can do nothing but make your digital printing that much better. But whether such digital prints, from whomsoever they come, can be regarded as 'art' is still, for me, very open to debate. Maybe the gallery world actually does know a thing or two after all!

I, too, worked in the darkroom for many years before digital came along. I hand processes many thousands film rolls and sheets, and printed many thousands of prints, both color and b/w. Now I work exclusively with digital. I can you with all certainty, from the core of my photographic soul, that there is NO difference. None. And any perception you have to the contrary is based simply on an irrational and emotional attachment to the darkroom.

Your argument that the chemical process is a superior art form because you supposedly do it by hand is ludicrous. You don't mix your own light sensitive solutions, you don't coat your own substrates, you expose simply by pressing a button on the timer, and you develop by rocking a tray of hydroquinone, metol or pyro. So, where exactly is this high art? Because it certainly ain't in the process.

I can tell you this, when I am working on an image, the computer is nothing more than a conduit. A necessary and invisible tool. I'm not staring at an LCD monitor, I'm studying the image. I'm not waving a mouse, I'm burning and dodging with very much those same motions I would use in the darkroom. When I'm working on a digital image, there is no computer. There is only the image and myself.

Which brings me to another and a far more important point. Art is about personal vision, insight and discovery. It's about emotion and connection. It is about the soul. It is not, as you state, about the process. If we were to believe you, the simple fact that an image was chemically created is sufficient cause to elevate it to the stature of true art, no matter how insufficient the resulting photograph.

Thank you, no. I'll stick with my digital process and I will do so with my head held high, for I know that real art is created in the heart, not the darkroom.

« Last Edit: August 02, 2011, 02:52:43 PM by ckimmerle »

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"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust

Sorry Rob, but I have to disagree. We're going to get the same argument in years to come from many computer or Photoshop aficionados' when the next technological breakthrough comes along. It takes a LOT of effort, knowhow and yes, imagination and artistic vision to take a RAW image and digitally manipulate it to it being a work of art. No less input or expertise is required than in the darkroom, it's just different. Check out Alain Briot's and many others' digital workflow. There certainly is an art to it. Of course, not everyone wants to use those methods, but that doesn't, in my eyes, diminish the ability photographically or artistically of proponents of digital. Again, I enjoy it, don't find it easy to get to where I want with a RAW image digitally, but that depends how far you want to go with the image, either digitally or chemically. Accomplished photographers can certainly spend as much time at the computer/printer as a traditional guy in the darkroom/enlarger. I'll just carry on doing what I do and enjoy it, along with my clients.

Rob, As you know, I've spent a lot of hours in the darkroom too, and I have to agree completely with Chuck and Jake. I'll go even farther: art either is or is not created at the moment you trip the shutter. It's true that once you've captured something that could be called art you still have to go through the process of bringing it to life, but if you didn't do the job correctly at the moment of exposure, no amount of darkroom or Photoshop work is going to change that fact. I'm sure that while Ansel was turning his "score" into a "performance" in the darkroom he understood that the score had to be good or the performance was going to be bad no matter how much he danced.

I side with those folks who believe that it doesn't matter much how the image is produced but how it ends up satisfying the photographers intent. I've never missed the darkroom days one second but can appreciate how it gets into someone's blood.

No wish to fight any of you, but I still believe that there is just something truly visceral with wet processing that doesn't exist with a computer.

Claiming that anything made with chemicals should, because of my stance, be interpreted as meaning everything created in a darkroom is valid is silly, too. I've made as much rubbish in the wet as I have in the computer - probably even more by virtue of the years, but there you go. Neither do I see that making or not making up chemicals is akin to any part of computer printing; that's just a part where, as with E6 or olde Kodachrome, you want total consitency and no surprises. It's part of the hardware, in a sense, not flexible (you hope!).

Whether others feel or do not feel the differences between wet and digital is up to them and their personal take on creativity; that's not to deny that, for some, the difference is very real. Digital printing smacks of painting by numbers; mechanical art at best.

I also agree that the art is in the shooting, to a very high degree (rubbish in, rubbish out), but as long as I am willing to accept that art is of the human, then the more tactile and user-friendly the process the closer to the spirit of art the 'product' remains. I never thought of my wet prints as product; how easy for me to see my digital ones as little else, and there I have to include most of the others that I've been shown by photographers.

Inviting any critic to read publications by practitioners of the digital world is hardly going to lead to new thinking: they have what's called a vested interest in promoting their point of view; I have none, either way. I just know which satisfies and which leaves me pretty cold. Not a reason for declaring war.

FWIW I make and extensively show both traditional and digital prints. I don't find either one easy, more creative or more satisfying to my artistic desires. Some images print better in silver and some better in ink. Why would one want to tie their creative hands with some 19th century aesthetic formula? If you find no soul in digital I suggest you simply haven't put in the time to become proficient at it or are looking at digital with blinders on.

I started shooting digital way back, with Kodak's 1 megapixel wonder. Since then I've seen the shift, at least at the art shows, from about 0% digital to about 90% digital. And I've spoken to hundreds of photographer exhibitors who have made the transition to digital, some eagerly, some grudgingly. The latter group made the change mainly for economic reasons in that they simply could not compete on price in the art show marketplace.

As I said, I wish a battle with nobody, but I do reserve the right to feel as I feel.

Rob, I KNOW it's your opinion, but that does not lessen my need to respond. You publicly stated that digital photography is not art. That is pretty insulting. Add that to your previous statements that landscape photography is not art, and you really wonder why I respond with indignation?

Chuck "the digital landscape photographer who will never create art" Kimmerle

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"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust

Rob, I KNOW it's your opinion, but that does not lessen my need to respond. You publicly stated that digital photography is not art. That is pretty insulting. Add that to your previous statements that landscape photography is not art, and you really wonder why I respond with indignation?

Chuck "the digital landscape photographer who will never create art" Kimmerle

Seriously indignation?.....it says a ton more about Rob's idiosyncrasies than about any of your failings as an artist. Why do you care about what he thinks of your art?

This is a really interesting discussion. I certainly don't consider it a 'war' or 'battle'. I join forums for many reasons, one of the main reasons being to broaden my knowledge by obtaining the viewpoints of others, from those either more, or less advanced than me. We've ALL got something to learn, and (thankfully) always will have. There are certainly many different views here on this subject, and I enjoy taking into consideration every one of them. I'm not convinced at all that digital is not art. It's 'JUST ANOTHER WAY OF DOING THINGS"! It's certainly not easy when done correctly. I've seen some wonderful photogravure prints, which I absolutely admire. That's a different way of doing things and one which I've never tried (yet). I certainly couldn't just do it without a lot of effort and learning. I know some carbon ink printers who produce beautiful work. That has its roots in photogravure, but is now printed on digital printers. There are no doubt photogravure workers who denigrate carbon ink printing; however they look stunning when done properly. IT"S JUST ANOTHER WAY OF DOING THINGS! We can't stop progress and shouldn't try. Take the ball and run with it, or at least give credit to those who do, even if you don't want to. At the end of the day, it's in the eye of the beholder, and that's all that matters!

Blender Gallery in Paddington, Sydney is all about analogue photography. They are into Lomo, Holga, Diana etc. There is an emphasis on music photography and rock and roll prints. I visit there a couple of times a year.